The Federal Bridge Corporation Limited (FBCL) recently announced that it is proceeding with the next phase of work on the Blue Water Bridge Master Plan.

The Blue Water Bridge crosses the Canada-U.S. border, over the St. Clair River, connecting Point Edward/Sarnia, Ontario to Port Huron, Michigan.

The Corporation is initiating a series of work over the next few years to improve the bridge plaza including the construction of an emergency return road, the demolition of a vacant commercial building on the bridge plaza and related civil works.

The new emergency return road will provide important safety and efficiency improvements for the bridge operations. It will serve to connect the commercial compound on the south side of the bridge to the plaza and bridge approach on the north side.

This connection is essential to provide unrestricted bridge access to emergency first responders, to ease the return of commercial and traffic vehicles to the U.S., to facilitate outbound inspections, to allow broker access for U.S. bound commercial vehicles and to improve the entry and exit of maintenance and delivery vehicles on the bridge plaza.

The emergency return road construction will require the vacancy and demolition of four FBCL-BWB owned residential properties. The old commercial building, which was replaced by the new Blue Water Bridge Corporate Centre in 2009, located next to the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) traffic operations is to be demolished.

The projects will begin in Spring 2017 and continue over the next few years.